These crusaders fighting for cemeteries

Group's cause is graveyard preservation.

Group's cause is graveyard preservation.

November 20, 2005|JOEL THURTELL Detroit Free Press

FLAT ROCK, Mich. (AP) -- "LITTLE WILLIE DIED Feb. 25, 1855." Those words originally were engraved on a stone slab that stood upright in Trenton's Old Burial Ground for generations. A century and a half later, 2-year-old Willie Alvord's tombstone lies partly on the ground, partly edged across a fragment of a different grave marker. The scene infuriated Jennifer Cerasuolo as she looked at a dozen overturned gravestones. Shafts of once-tall obelisks lay flat on the ground, or slantwise, stuck in the earth on graves where they don't belong. "Horrible!" said Cerasuolo, a 30-year-old Flat Rock resident who has appointed herself as avenger of downtrodden, forgotten and mistreated cemeteries. She's not a cop or a prosecutor or a judge. Her only means of persuasion are moral. And if you're an official charged with caring for a graveyard, and Cerasuolo finds your cemetery in sorry shape, prepare to receive a call. She formed a group of 138 like-minded cemetery preservationists who call themselves the Huron Crusaders, after the Huron Township cemetery where Cerasuolo first mounted a crusade. When she finds a cemetery where the weeds are tall, stones are knocked down, or signs are missing, Cerasuolo posts photos on her Web site. Then she contacts officials in charge -- township supervisors, public service directors, cemetery sextons -- anyone whose duty it is to make sure the graveyard is kept in shape. Cerasuolo's interest in cemeteries began during a class at the University of Michigan-Dearborn called Graveyard Images -- Death and Dying. Assigned to analyze cemetery tombstones for religious and cultural content, she went to a cemetery where she had played as a child in Huron Township. Weeds, knee-high grass and broken headstones greeted her. Upset, she contacted township officials. Within five days, the graveyard had been cleaned up. That was in June 2004. Now, she travels to inspect cemeteries whenever people call her. And she fixes them. "I volunteer my services, no fee," said Cerasuolo. "It's a great joy to get a cemetery cleaned up." She's inspected cemeteries throughout southeastern Michigan and plans a visit to northern Indiana. Through her Web site, she's recruited Huron Crusaders from as far as England, Guam and the Netherlands. For Trenton's Old Burial Ground, Cerasuolo had posted critical comments on her Web site in March. She was disappointed to see little improvement during an inspection last month. The picturesque cemetery is surrounded by a tall iron fence and shaded by large oak and walnut trees. Accompanied by her husband, Pasquale Cerasuolo, 34, Jennifer Cerasuolo walked from one downed stone to another. "I grade for stone condition first, and second of all is landscaping," Jennifer Cerasuolo said. "I make sure it's safe -- that there are no hazards, and the third thing I grade for is accessibility: Do people know about the cemetery?" A cemetery should be open in daylight hours, but locked at night, she said. But the Trenton cemetery, which is flanked by a barbershop with a bowling alley opposite, is open all the time. While two of the gates were chained and padlocked when Cerasuolo visited a third gate was unlocked and open to anyone. No doubt it was through that open gate that vandals entered, she said. "Those stones weren't down in March," she said. "When I go to a cemetery, the first thing I check for is vandalism." She liked the Old Burial Ground's big metal marker, which was visible from the street. And the grass appeared to have been recently mowed. It still got an E. A is the highest mark in the grading system. "This is disturbing to me," she said of the prone gravestones. Trenton Mayor Gerald Brown doesn't disagree that the stones are down, but "the rating of E was probably overdone in my opinion," he said. The mayor also said it's unlikely that the stones were knocked down by vandals. His view is bolstered by the experience of Charles Martinez, a historian and archaeologist at the Oakland County Pioneer and Historical Museum in Pontiac. Martinez, who's writing a book on Oakland County graveyards, said it's not uncommon for tombstones over a century old to lean, crumble and topple without any help from people. To fix the stones properly would be costly when the city budget is being squeezed, Brown said. According to the marker at the Trenton cemetery, 44 people are buried there. Several Civil War veterans are there, along with Trenton's first doctor. Cerasuolo has given D and E grades to the Gibraltar Cemetery and Oakdale Cemetery in Taylor. Not all the grades are bad. Flat Rock's Huron Valley Cemetery got an A-plus, and Woodhaven's Our Lady of Hope Cemetery got a B. So did Trenton's Bloomdale Cemetery. And as for the tombstone of Little Willie Alvord, it is likely to be set upright in the spring, when Cerasuolo works with Trenton's Department of Public Works to clean up the cemetery, she said.